compliments to Phoebe on 'doing it stylishly, careering in Acton's
turn-out,' but when the elder sister explained where she had been,
Mervyn, too, deserted her, and turned away with a fierce imprecation on
his brother, such as was misery to Phoebe's ears. He was sourly
ill-humoured all the evening; Juliana wreaked her displeasure on Sir
Bevil in ungraciousness, till such silence and gloom descended on him,
that he was like another man from him who had smiled on Phoebe in the
afternoon. Yet, though dismayed at the offence she had given, and
grieved at these evidences of Robert's ill-odour with his family, Phoebe
could not regret having seized her single chance of seeing Robert's
dwelling for herself, nor the having made him known to Sir Bevil. The
one had made her satisfied, the other hopeful, even while she
recollected, with foreboding, that truth sometimes comes not with peace,
but with a sword, to set at variance parent and child, and make foes of
them of the same household.

Juliana never forgave that drive. She continued bitter towards Phoebe,
and kept such a watch over her and Sir Bevil, that the jealous
surveillance became palpable to both. Sir Bevil really wanted to tell
Phoebe the unsatisfactory result of his pleading for Robert; she wanted
to tell him of Robert's gratitude for his offered gift; but the exchange
of any words in private was out of their power, and each silently felt
that it was best to make no move towards one another till the unworthy
jealousy should have died away.

Though Sir Bevil had elicited nothing but abuse of 'pigheaded folly,' his
espousal of the young clergyman's cause was not without effect. Robert
was not treated with more open disfavour than he had often previously
endured, and was free to visit the party at Farrance's, if he chose to
run the risk of encountering his father's blunt coldness, Mervyn's sulky
dislike, and Juliana's sharp satire, but as he generally came so as to
find his mother and Phoebe alone, some precious moments compensated for
the various disagreeables. Nor did these affect him nearly as much as
they did his sister. It was, in fact, one of his remaining unwholesome
symptoms that he rather enjoyed persecution, and took no pains to avoid
giving offence. If he meant to be uncompromising, he sometimes was
simply provoking, and Phoebe feared that Sir Bevil thought him an
unpromising _protege_.

He was asked to the Christmas dinner at the Bannermans', and di